With a new awards season upon us, Brand Equity curates an advertising awards calendar tailored for Indian agencies. Some tips and tricks for award-worthy case studies. In this special feature, we also list a few firms that are helping creative shops, brands, and awards shows with their presentations, case studies and AVs. You can thank us after you bring home a Lion, Pencil or whatever other trophy you desire.

Once an adman quipped, “You need experts for everything now." His comment was directed at the “"the professionalisation of winning awards”, an off-shoot creative service that has emerged as a fairly lucrative business for some

How a tweet by Emil Protalinski, the news editor of Venture Beat, caught our attention. He had listed the big tech birthdays of 2019. So here are pre-birthday wishes to some of these tech brands that have become close friends and confidantes, and a part of our daily lives, whether we like it or not

Change is the lifeblood of the marketing communications industry. It keeps us relevant and in business. Our consumer has changed would be one of advertisings most overused clichs, if only it wasnt so true! And while consumer change is constant, its also expected and hence, fairly easy to manage.What isnt so easy to manage, however, is the fundamental change in how consumers relate to brands. Today, brands are not what we tell consumers they are; brands are what consumers tell each other they Read more..

Tell me a story. This is childhoods most common refrain. But the desire for a good story remains long into adulthood. Stories touch our hearts and minds; expand our horizons, let us into another persons journey, awaken our emotions, inspire our imagination and tap into our dreams. Good stories become part of us. They are sticky which is why they are such a powerful tool in creating an unforgettable brand and building a lasting relationship with consumers. Research shows that we retain facts Read more..

Close to 344 million Indians have been watching television in rural areas for the last few years but no one had an idea what exactly they were watching. This changed in 2013, when Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), an industry body to design, commission, supervise and own an accurate reliable and timely television audience measurement system for India was set up. From the day the first rural data from BARC came out in October 2015 till today, with close to 16 months of measurement, Read more..

The Indian Media and Entertainment (M&E) industry, which witnessed consistent growth over the last few years, saw a blip recently with demonetisation having an adverse impact on consumption and consequently on advertising spend. However, this has been a short-term phenomenon as ad spend is already witnessing an uptick and it is expected that it would be business as usual from Q1 2017-18 onwards. While the macro indicators for M&E industry remain strong, there are some short-term headwinds which Read more..

What do you do if you are a country that wants to draw in tourists? Theres the usual options: ad campaigns, road shows, cultural festivals. Relatively unusual ones: travel blogs, Instagram and for India, a Bollywood film, showing an assortment of Khans or Kapoors dancing bare-chested against tourist brochure backdrops, as the locals look on, indulgently. And then theres the most drastic option a recession. Consider Greece where a record-breaking 27.5 million people visited in 2016, a statistic Read more..

The definition of luxury travel has evolved over time; it now means different things to different people. One key trend driving luxury travel is the shift in values from material to experiential. Rather than saving up for luxurious possessions, people are opting for memorable experiences. However, curating such experiences is as critical as making these offerings accessible via technology, when it comes to taking luxury to the next level. This is also because more luxury travellers now research Read more..

Its interesting how the travel ethos has changed in our country. From being a group based activity with a one size fits all approach, to a more tailored,DIY, badge wearing experience. I too have evolved as a traveller over thelast decade. DIY Travel My experiences over the last decade includes an incredibly tough and bumpy ship ride across the Drake passage to reach Antarctica. Its a continent that technically doesnt belong to anyone, but has been marketed smartly enough by cruise companies as Read more..

A customer once acquired is often forgotten. Much like a marriage where over the years a spouse is taken for granted. It is only when one partner gets a wordless threat or a strongly worded legal notice that the other partner starts making amends. A sales team has the task of meeting its sales targets and the easiest way is to do that is to find a new customer. And that is simply because neither the sales team nor the organization is confident of approaching the same customer again because they Read more..

In the late 80s, Sunday mornings meant desolate streets and empty markets. For those of us who remember, all of India was glued to TV sets watching Ramayana and Mahabharata. In fact, it was not uncommon to see entire neighbourhoods huddled around a single television in rapt attention. The captive audiences commanded by these popular television series were not isolated occurrences. Through the 80s, 90s and even early 2000s, it was the norm for families to gather around a single screen, at Read more..

29 Mar 2017

Devendra ChawlaCEO & Group president food FMCG, Future Consumer and Future Group

The concept of zero, advanced algebra, trigonometry and geometry along with the worlds first seat of learning, Takhsila, all originated in this land of ours. Shampoo was introduced to the western world from India in 1762, sugar refining some 2000 years ago. Similar contributions in metallurgy, textiles, Ayurveda, yoga and medical procedures are well documented. It has been The Orient giveth and the Occident taketh for most eras gone by.The West is looking to us now, yet again, seeking The West Read more..

The problems posed by todays environment are still being tackled by paradigms from the past. For example, Segmentation - Targeting - Positioning (S-T-P) is used with religious fanaticism. But the way we define and exploit markets, conventionally, has yielded declining shares with consumers flirting across categories. The alternative S-E-P schema (satisfaction-entrenching-scoping) runs a similar market selection marathon but could yield richer result. From segmentation to satisfaction Typically Read more..

I cringe. Its my thing. Its natural, inborn and innate. From as far back as I can remember, I cringed. From the sight of clothes hanging in balconies to dark wigs on aged, mottled, unmatched faces to the sound of Shabbir Kumar doing a Accident ho gaya rubba rubba a la Mohammed Rafi, I cringed because I could. A cringe is a talent but heres the thing: it need never be displayed or showcased, right? You can cringe individually, privately without anyone knowing, without being judged or ridiculed. Read more..

On the 8th of November, 2016 when our Prime Minister announced the demonetization of 500 and 1000 rupee notes, one of his stated objectives was to digitalize the banking ecosystem in India. Ironically, the 2-3 months after this announcement was perhaps the most active period for the banking industry in India, with Indians scrambling to convert their remaining rupee notes, standing in ATM queues to withdraw money while talking about soldiers on the border and signing up forms in bank branches to Read more..

Calibrating our ambition The issue with selling new ideas and technology to India is that the supply side is more eager and breathless than the consumer usually is. Predictions such as Indian digital payments market will reach $500 bn by 2020 lead to this breathlessness. These numerical extrapolations dont account for the role of cultural variables. What gets frustrating then is the pace of adoption; notoriously slower and more unpredictable than expected. The first big caveat is to pace our Read more..

I was recently part of the interview panel to screen applicants to the advertising and marketing course at Xavier Institute of Communications (XIC). I came away with several lessons for those of us (self included) a little removed from the pipeline that creates the future of our business. Im myself one of those who glibly ask newbies to bring passion with them. Or else. But I forgot that, like them, I was also a nervous greenhorn who didnt quite know what I wanted to do with my life and career. Read more..

Professor Cynthia Montgomery announced at the end of her class Next week we will be discussing the Gucci case. So if any of you have what you consider a luxury brand / product with you, do bring it to class, and let us have a show and tell. The next week all the participants of the program -- many were CEOs and entrepreneurs -- trooped in with their luxury brand/products. We saw a display of fancy sunglasses, shoes, bags, watches, pens and more. As Prof Montgomery was making her way around the Read more..

In the pursuit of greatness, we often tend to underestimate the value of being small and nimble. When it comes to sewing the sail, it is the needle that does it, not the sword. And that is what is ailing the Corporate Giants today, theyve just become too big to change. We need to understand that innovations are happening across the world every minute and consumers are willing to transform with them. In this day and age, you cant hope to wait years to hire employees then train and build Read more..

It used to be simpler for marketers to measure their love for their agencies in the past. Evaluation parameters were straight forward with creativity (and recognition through awards) being at the forefront. In the last few years, other criteria like return on marketing investment, use of digital and multi-channel marketing have been added to the list. Today, however, the parameters have evolved further and are becoming even more complex. The reason is two-fold: The rapidly changing and Read more..

The Indian ad industrys health and wellness at Cannes this year was arguably its best ever, winning 40 medals. Coincidentally the Health, Wellness and Pharma Lions accounted for the maximum number of Indias wins (14) including a Grand Prix for Good. It reflects in the kind of work happening around the world. For the last five years or even earlier, most brands are, for good or for questionable reasons, trying to make the world a better place to live in. As a result, a lot of work done by Read more..

No, those are not the words that Gandalf the Grey thundered to the black monster Balrog in Lord of the Rings. But I wish Gandalf were to say these words to the stakeholders of healthcare. The world would be a much healthier place Healthcare means changing behaviour. And mostly changing the behaviour of a patient. 40 years ago it was relatively easy as most diseases were acute typhoid, diarrhoea, jaundice, viral. The change in behaviour for patients lasted days of weeks at best. And the Read more..